Is she?
From what I know, Jinni’s marriage is a ticking time bomb. Explosive headlines, messy court filings, and one near-death experience. But clearly my parents are masters of denial, or maybe they’ve just gotten really good at looking the other way.
I wheel the rest of my luggage to the door, still searching for those damn AirPods as my mom continues her rant.
“Who’s the floozy that fought for women to work alongside men, anyway? She probably thought pantsuits were a good idea too.”
“Oh, wow,” I sigh, rolling my eyes.
“It was so much easier for women to find a husband and settle down when they weren’t slaving away at a job. You’re always working, working, working. No play!”
“Women who work find men just fine.”
“Not you.”
My goodness, why didn’t I just let this call go to voicemail?
“I do. And I have.” I recheck the time on my phone again. I need to get out of here.
“Well, where is he? They don’t stay around long. Weston picked his career over you. And that low-down dirty Trey left you to marry someone else.”
“Can wenotbring that up, please?”
I pass by Fatima, my fiddle leaf-fig, and remember that all my plant babies need watering before I leave.
“Fine. Excuse me for trying to make a point.”
“Which is?” I fill my watering can with water and make my rounds.
“That you’re getting older, which meansI’mgetting older, and I want to see you settled with a winner and have grandchildren before I die.”
“I’m only thirty-two.”
“I had you when I was twenty-one.”
“I was in college at twenty-one.”
“True,” my mother says, like she’s trying to sound gracious. “I just thought my oldest daughter would be settled by now.”
So did I.
Twice I thought I’d found the man who’d give me forever. A ring, a home. Maybe even a baby. But one left for a job overseas. And the other proved that our ‘forever’ was just a pretty lie.
After that, I stopped aiming for forever.
What came after were men who didn’t stay long enough to matter. Dates that felt more like interviews. Conversations that went nowhere. Connections that fizzled out before they even hadthe chance to become something real. Men who were carrying bright red flags I chose to take seriously rather than brush off or try to fix, as if they had potential. If they were already doing things I had low tolerance for, I was gone. Quick, fast, and in a hurry.
Once I finish watering my eight plants, I load the car with all my luggage. A large suitcase, a carry-on, and my weekender.
“You just take work so seriously. You know, work won’t keep you warm at night.”
“It does, actually. My light bill is working and that fireplace crackles quite nicely on Christmas morning.”
“Oh, you know what I mean,” she huffs. And I can almost hear her rolling her eyes through the phone. ‘I’m just saying, if you weren’t so busy all the time, maybe you’d have time for a real relationship.”
I sigh, slamming the trunk of my car closed. I head into the house to grab my crossbody purse, dragging the zipper closed with a little more force than necessary. I do a run-through of all the rooms in my condo, making sure I’m not leaving anything behind.
“Maybe, but I’m not just going to settle for the next best thing.”
